Orange County's political superstars tonight were Diana Carey and Margie L. Rice, both Westminster City Council members, who figuratively kicked the sniveling ass of a state transportation bureaucrat trying to sway the council to back off its vocal rejection of adding future, costly tolls fees on the long-ago-built 405 freeway.

Councilwoman Carey told the Caltrans official that Westminster citizens "are angry beyond words" about turning the 405 into a mechanism for private toll-road profit and firmly asserted, "We will not tolerate it."

State government officials, working in league with faceless but ultra-wealthy Wall Street investment interests that make billions of dollars a year by enticing elected officials across the country to convert public roads to tollways, want citizens to pay fees each time they use already constructed roads.

Their excuse is that the freeways need to become private revenue generating sources to expand traffic capacity.

In reality, toll roads are a huge windfall for Wall Street bankers who take road projects that should cost, for example, $350 million, and convert them into semi-private roads that cost $12 or $15 billion or more--with the overwhelming bulk of the money landing in the bank accounts of New York fat cats.

That example isn't a hypothetical.

That's what is happening in Orange County's horrific financial experience with the San Joaquin Hills Toll Road.

Steamed Rice

Carey made clear that she, the council and local residents are not humored by the state's push to essentially privatize the public roads.

"We certainly are not looking at tolls at this point," she said, tersely calling Caltrans' plans "very disappointing."

Carey added, "I think I'm going to have a heart attack if I say anything more."

Rice asserted that state officials "don't listen" and have a problem telling the truth.

The Orange County Transportation Authority, whose members are wined and dined by Wall Street lobbyists, is scheduled to vote on a final plan in October.

R. Scott Moxley’s award-winning investigative journalism has touched nerves for two decades. An angry congressman threatened to break Moxley’s knee caps. A dirty sheriff promised his critical reporting was irrelevant and then landed in prison. Corporate crooks won’t take his calls. Murderous gangsters mad-dogged him in court. The U.S. House of Representatives debated his work. Pusillanimous cops have left hostile messages using fake names. Federal prosecutors credited his stories for the arrest of a doctor who sold fake medicine to dying patients. And a frantic state legislator literally caught sleeping with lobbyists sprinted down state capital hallways to evade his questions in Sacramento. Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club and been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists.